Samsung has been known to release a few oddball devices here and there over the years and the Galaxy Beam was one of their more bizarre devices, tacking a pico projector onto the end of a Galaxy smartphone. Many of you will remember the Galaxy Beam as being a chunky device that launched a few years ago now. It didn’t feature the same sort of specs as other similar devices and the projector side of things added a considerable amount of bulk. Never one to give up on an idea completely, Samsung seems to be readying a Galaxy Beam 2, as it’s recently been spotted on Samsung’s Chinese website.
With smartphones being able to send content to TVs much easier than before, and services like Chromecast around, it seems a little strange that Samsung would be attempting another Galaxy Beam. However, the novelty of being able to effectively turn your smartphone into a TV of sorts itself is pretty nifty and will certainly come in handy more than a few times. As this is a new version of the device, there are some updates to the internal specs (which is to be expected after such a long time since the original). The Galaxy Beam 2 features a 4.66-inch display with a resolution of 800 x 480, a 1.2 Ghz Quad-Core CPU and a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera. With no mention of RAM and Android 4.2.2 listed as installed, it’s clear that this isn’t meant to be a high-end device.
More about the projector side of things, the Galaxy Beam 2 looks very much like a low-end device for Samsung, and one that could appeal to new parents (as Samsung’s website is alluding to) and a younger audience looking for some sort of unique feature. It’s a shame that the display here is of such low resolution, but that could be to go with the projector, which can only output at WVGA itself. There is GSM bans listed on their website, so there’s a good chance this is headed West, but the question is, would anyone buy such a device?